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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie made with cocoa, milk, sugar, butter, corn starch, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cocoa, milk, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until well mixed.

  3. Dissolve corn starch in a small portion of milk.

  4. Add the dissolved corn starch to the mixture.

  5. Stir until thickened.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Stir in the beaten eggs and vanilla extract.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the filling once it is combined with the hot mixture.
Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and vanilla extract. Add the eggs off the heat after the filling has thickened, so they blend in smoothly without scrambling. Stir steadily while adding them.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cocoa, milk, sugar, butter, corn, egg, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Nutsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa, milk, sugar, butter, corn, egg, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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